Support

FAQs

Welcome to the Frequently Asked Questions for Oxford Public International Law (OPIL). The questions are divided into those for users and those for librarians. If you have a question that is not on this list, please contact us at onlinemarketing@oup.com.

Discoverability

The answers...

Questions relating to the migration of existing sites

1) Oxford University Press has migrated the websites Oxford Reports on International Law (ORIL) and Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (MPEPIL). What were the main changes?

Oxford Public International Law (OPIL) has been created to house three products within it, all available for subscription: Oxford Reports on International Law (ORIL), the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (MPEPIL), and a new product, Oxford Scholarly Authorities in International Law (OSAIL). These products will sit within directories of the OPIL URL.

The look and feel of the sites has been updated, with improved search and browse functionality, as well as new personalization features to allow you to bookmark and share content and searches. There are also clearer filters to enable you to find the information you need with speed and efficiency as well as fuller and clearer links through to the Oxford Law Citator and external content to continue your research journeys. Please take our tour for a quick overview

2) Why have they changed?

Oxford University Press wanted to offer existing content plus new content, including authoritative books, in one searchable and browsable environment.

The development of a new digital Law platform for the new sites underlines Oxford’s commitment to the dissemination of scholarship with new functionality that reflects the evolution of user requirements in a rapidly-shifting digital environment. Intuitive search, browse, and filtering functionality combined with the enhanced Oxford Law Citator provides subscribers with quick and easy linking across high quality content and Oxford’s digital Law products. All of Oxford’s Public International Law content sits in one product family and is now cross-searchable.

3) What are Product Families?

Oxford University Press has decided to group their Academic Law products within the same subject area or discipline under a Product Family. This means that a site can contain multiple sub-sites, which supports easy cross-searching and offers subscribers a variety of options for purchase.
Product Family: Oxford Public International Law
Products within the Product Family: Oxford Reports in International Law, Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law, Oxford Scholarly Authorities in International Law

4) Do I have access to everything in the Product Family? How will I know if I don’t have access?

Your access to the content will depend on the subscription that you or your institution has purchased. Even though you may not have a subscription to all of the products in a Product Family, you can search across all of the products. This means that you can see results from content you are not subscribed to, as well as content that you can access. ‘Protected’ results are indicated by a padlock icon or, in some cases, a line of text indicating that there are more results from a particular product. You can filter search results to view items with full-text access or filter to view the content that you don’t have access to. If you want to access content that you do not have a subscription for, we suggest that you complete a Recommend to your librarian form.

5) Has anything been removed?

The new look and feel is quite different to the previous sites but you are able to carry out all the searching and browsing functions that were previously available. Content from the previous version of the site has been retained in the migration and new content is being added to the sites on a rolling basis to ensure that the site is as up to date as possible.

6) Will my bookmarks change?

If you have previously bookmarked the product’s URL, it will still be valid. If you bookmarked within a document, at section or chapter level, the bookmark will point to the home page in the new site. The URL you previously used to access your subscription will automatically re-direct to its new URL on the new platform.

No; you will have full text access to the same product(s) that you had access to previously.

9) How has the migration changed usage reporting?

We offer COUNTER-compliant statistics (following the Code of Practice for Books and Reference Works, Release 1) with more reports than previously available:

BR2: Number of Successful Section Requests by Month

BR4: Turnaways by Month and Service

BR6: Total Searches and Sessions by Month and Service

10) Can I see usage statistics for my library/institution?

Yes, COUNTER-compliant usage statistics are available to account administrators. To see your institution's usage statistics, follow the appropriate link in our Subscriber Services area (you'll need to use your administrator user name and password).

11) How often are COUNTER statistics made available?

COUNTER statistics are made available approximately 2 weeks after the end of the month.

Access issues

12) I have forgotten my user name and password

Only account administrators can reset passwords. Please see your librarian or administrator for help.

13) I am a subscriber and I can't access Oxford Public International Law

Please check that you have sent us your licence agreement. Unless you are in a free trial period, we cannot give you access to the site until we have received and checked your signed license agreement.

a) Is it possible that some of your registration details are incorrect on our database?

If the IP address or addresses for your institution or the user name and password which you use to access Oxford Public International Law are incorrect in our subscriber database you will not be able to access the site. Check with your librarian or account administrator, and ask them to follow the instructions below.

You need to log in to the site then select Subscriber Services from the top toolbar on any page, and then go to Subscriber Services Log in for existing subscribers' to enter the Subscriber Services page for your territory. From there you can check that you are using the correct user name and password or that the correct IP addresses have been entered for your institution.

Once you have checked whether your IP address details are correct, please use the contact us section in Subscriber Services to tell us whether:

— your IP address/es need to be corrected (if so, please supply the correct address/es)
— your IP address/es are correct, but you still can't get access to Oxford Public International Law.

b) Are you seeing any error messages when you try to log in?

Error messages appear above the login box on the Log in screen. These give some suggestions about why you may not be able to access the site. They may direct you to either your network administrator or to the contact us page.

c) Could your account be on hold?

Occasionally an account is put on hold if we have not received your subscription payment, or if your subscription or free trial has expired. In both of these cases we would usually have been in touch with you about this. Please contact us for more information about this.

d) If your institution holds a concurrent user licence, it may be that your browser is not configured to accept cookies

Cookies are required for subscribers in order to control access to the service. If you see a cookie-related error message when you try to log in, then you need to enable cookies and try again.For more information, please contact us.

14) After I enter my user name/password and click on "log in" and then try to search or use the indexes, I'm being bounced back to a blank log-in screen

It is possible that you are seeing an old page and need to alter your cache settings. To find out how to refresh your cache settings, please refer to the online help in your Browser.

Questions for users

What content can be found within Oxford Public International Law?

15) How often is Oxford Public International Law updated?

The content on Oxford Public International Law will be updated depending on the product(s) that you are subscribed to.ORIL
New cases will be reported as soon as possible after they are decided and we envisage that new and updated content will be added on a weekly basis.MPEPIL
New and updated content will be added three to four times a year. The Encyclopedia contains over 1600 articles, which will continue to grow and be updated on a rolling basis. New articles will be commissioned to cover significant developments in international law such as: major new cases before international courts and tribunals, agreement of significant new treaties, and the creation of new international organizations and dispute settlement bodies.OSAIL
New titles are added twice a year. Click here for a list of titles currently available on the site.

16) Can I receive email alerts regarding news and updates to Oxford Public International Law?

You can subscribe to an RSS feed from the Home Page, which delivers the latest information about new content wherever you want it.

17) What are the different types of content in Oxford Public International Law?

Oxford Law Products contain a wide variety of content types, which differs from product to product.
Oxford Reports on International Law:
Arbitral awards
Arbitral decisions
OPIC decisions
International court decisions
National court decisions

Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law:
Encyclopedia entries

Oxford Scholarly Authorities on International Law:
A variety of books: authoritative treatises, black-letter reference works and commentaries, classic works on international law and flagship publications.

18) How do you decide what content to publish in Oxford Public International Law?

OPIL
Please see ORIL’s Editorial Policy, Coverage and Process.MPEPIL
The article topics have all been selected by the Editorial Advisory Board. In order to avoid unnecessary proliferation of articles or repetition of coverage, as far as possible new developments are included in existing articles. The Editors are open to suggestions from readers for topics or new articles that are not currently addressed by the Encyclopedia.OSAIL
Together with Judge Bruno Simma (Judge at the Iran-US Claims Tribunal and former Judge at the International Court of Justice; Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School), books in the following four categories have been selected for inclusion:
-Authoritative treatises, which continue to define their area of law
-Black-letter reference works and commentaries, which will help you to answer practical questions about the law
-Classic works on international law, which remain influential in their field today
-Flagship publications, which provide innovative perspectives on current legal problems

19) Can I suggest content for inclusion in Oxford Public International Law?

Please contact us with the details of the content that you would like to suggest and we will respond shortly. In order to add the necessary value to the content, our editorial processes mean that we cannot guarantee immediate publication, although we will endeavour to prioritise suggestions where possible.

20) How is the content digitized?

The full text of each piece of content has been digitized for online display and has an underlying structural markup in XML that supports advanced search. A checking process is undertaken to ensure high levels of accuracy. Inevitably errors may arise during the digitization process. We welcome feedback from users which will enable us to correct the data displayed on the site.

21) Some arbitral cases have more information in them, such as an analysis section. Why is this?

Finding information within Oxford Public International Law — searching, the Oxford Law Citator, linking

25) What are the different ways of searching within Oxford Public International Law?

There are two main ways in which you can carry out a search in Oxford Public International Law:
Quick Search
The Quick Search is used to search for case names, full text, or specific terms. Phrases need to be in inverted commas (“”) and wildcards (* and ?) can be used.
Find more information on Quick search here.
Advanced Search
The Advanced Search is used to search the entire content of the product, including bibliographical data and metadata. You can also search for multiple terms. Find more information on Advancedsearch here.

26) I’m having difficulty searching by date in Advanced Search. What date format is required?

Simply enter a year into the date field. If you wish to search with a date range, choose the date field and enter a date range in the input field, e.g. 2001-2012; if you want to search within a given year, leave the second field blank.

27) How can I view a list of books on OSAIL?

A list of the books available on the site can be accessed by clicking on Browse all and restricting the results list by the Book Titles filter.

28) What is the Oxford Law Citator and how do I use it?

The Oxford Law Citator is a state-of-the-art navigation tool which integrates the content of all online law resources from Oxford University Press, providing direct links between our case reports, primary materials, and value-added commentary. To access the Citator record for any particular item, click on the orange Citator logo within the item title, the Citator entry within the item table of contents, or any active links throughout the item text. For more information on how to use the Oxford Law Citator, visit its Help and FAQ pages.

29) How is the content linked in Oxford Public International Law?

A unique Citator record exists for each case report, instrument, commentary, or other material published on any online law resources from OUP. Within this record you will find citation details and links to the item. In addition you will find other useful information about the item, such as lists of other items that reference or are referenced by the item, links to related items, items from the same jurisdiction, and more. For more information on how to use the Oxford Law Citator, visit its Help and FAQ pages.

30) One of the cross-reference links in the text doesn't work

If a cross-reference link in the text isn't working, please contact us and we will try to fix the issue as soon as possible.

Working with the content — printing, saving, downloading

31) Can I print text from Oxford Public International Law?

You can print text from Oxford Public International Law. To print a page, use the Printer icon in the Tools toolbar at the top of the page. A preview window will appear with the correctly formatted pages, including footnotes (where relevant), minus the site navigation components. Please note that the Privacy policy and legal notice apply.

32) Can I save sections from the text to PDF from Oxford Public International Law?

To generate a PDF, navigate to the page and click the PDF button within the Tools toolbar. This can then be viewed on screen, printed, and saved for further use. Please note that Privacy policy and legal notice apply.

33) How much material can I legally print/save to PDF from Oxford Public International Law?

You are restricted by Copyright to the amount of information that you can print or download. It is very important that you read the Privacy policy and legal notice, which includes information on printing and downloading to PDF, before printing or downloading anything from Oxford Public International Law.

34) What is the searchable and readable unit for book content?

Generally, we chunk book content at the chapter level for search and reading purposes. If the chapters of a book are very long, so that using the chapter as the searchable and readable unit would give less granular results and very long sections to download and read, we will divide the content at a lower level (i.e. sections within the chapter)

35) I want to see the content of a single book in the order in which that content appears in the book.

Browse all
• Select narrowing by Book Title from the facets on the left hand side of the results
• Choose the title of the relevant book from the list in the box which appears (note that authors are not shown in this list – you will need to know the title of the book, and that you may need to scroll to see the end of the list) and tick the box next to that title to select it
• Click the Update button
• Your results will be updated so that they include only content from the selected title – the results will be in A – Z order by default, based on the title of each section of the book
• Change the sort order to Table of Contents order to see the content in the order in which it was published in print

36) Can I work in an environment where all I can see is content from a single product within a Product Family?

In OPIL, our first “family” of products in the same subject area, users can choose to work either in the product context or in the family context.
• If you want to see wider sets of results which include content from all products in OPIL, work in the family context – i.e. go to the OPIL home page by clicking on Oxford Public International Law in the Masthead.
• If you want to work in the product context, click on ORIL in the product selector on the left of the OPIL home page and you will be sent to the ORIL product. The same route will apply if you want to see only Max Planck Encyclopedia content, or only OSAIL books. When working in the product context, your search (including advanced search) and browse results are automatically limited to content within that product.
• You can get back to the OPIL family context by clicking again on the name of the family in the masthead, or by conducting a quick search with the family selected via the radio buttons above the search box.

Of course, when working within the OPIL environment you can also limit your results to those within a single product, or a module within ORIL, by using the Product facet on the left hand navigation bar.

Finally, if you only subscribe to certain products within the family, tick the box at the top left of the search page to see only results from those subscribed products, so excluding results for which you do not have full text access.

37) Why am I unable to order by relevance when browsing?

Relevance is applied to search only, not browse. Any item chosen within a particular browse category has equal weighting, so the results are presented in A-Z order by default. All other available sort orders may be applied to browse results with the exception of relevance.

38) What factors do you apply when ordering results by relevance?

There are a number of different factors applied when the products decide in which order they should return search results from a quick search. They include the number of times that the search term appears in the chunk, and whether it appears in the title or section headings. We are also able to add weightings for particular chunks or particular types of chunk to make them return further up or down the list.

39) For some content I see [No title] in both the table of contents and some headings – what does this mean?

No Title is the default heading for a chunk of content that does not have a title. There should be a limited number of these; they are generally introductory text or tables of content for appendices.

40) Why does clicking on the Citator take me away from the content in the product?

We have given users the choice as to how they use the Citator during their research. Either
a) Left click on a link or the Citator icon to open the Citator record in the same window as you are now working; this keeps the journey linear (i.e. you will move away from the content item within the product to the equivalent Citator record in the same tab or window, so avoiding a multitude of open tabs); or
b) Right click and choose to open the Citator in a new tab/window, so allowing you to move between the full text item and corresponding Citator content.
When working in the Citator and moving between Citator record, these options still apply – right click if you want to open the next citator record ina new tab.

Questions for Librarians

Technical questions — OpenURL, MARC Records, Usage statistics

41) Is Oxford Public International Law OpenURL-compliant?

Yes, Oxford Public International Law is compliant with version 0.1 of the OpenURL specification. To enable this feature in your institution, please access your account information in Subscriber Services. Oxford Public International Law also supports custom OpenURL resolver icons specific to your institution.

Also note that Oxford Public International Law is integrated with Ex Libris' SFX Knowledge Base, ensuring that the site operates as both a source and target for OpenURL.

42) Does Oxford Public International Law provide MARC records for subscribing institutions?

Click on the appropriate link on our Subscriber Services page to download a MARC21 format file (.mrc) containing records of titles published in the latest content update, or of all the titles currently published in Oxford Public International Law. Please note that you will require MARC record reader/editing software (such as MARC Edit) to load these files to your library system.
Please note that MARC records are available for online Law product titles and book titles published in online Law products only.

43) How are the Oxford Public International Law user statistics reports defined?

Oxford Public International Law offers COUNTER-compliant statistics (following the Code of Practice for Books and Reference Works, Release 1) offering the following reports:

BR2: Number of Successful Section Requests by Month

BR4: Turnaways by Month and Service

BR6: Total Searches and Sessions by Month and Service

44) Can I see usage statistics for my library/institution?

Yes, COUNTER-compliant usage statistics are available to account administrators. To see your institution's usage statistics, follow the appropriate link in our Subscriber Services area (you'll need to use your administrator user name and password).

45) How often are COUNTER statistics made available?

COUNTER statistics are made available approximately 2 weeks after the end of the month.

46) What is your policy on third party data mining?

Oxford University Press recognizes the research benefit of Text and Data Mining (TDM) across a variety of research fields. As such, we are happy to accommodate TDM for non-commercial use. Although researchers are not required to request permission for non-commercial text-mining, OUP is happy to offer consultation with a technical project manager to assist in planning your project, including avoidance of any technical safeguards triggers OUP has in place to protect the stability and security of our websites. To request a consultant for your TDM project, please e-mail Data.Mining@oup.com

OUP is also happy to consider any Commercial TDM requests. To request approval for TDM for commercial use, please email Data.Mining@oup.com

Access issues — logging in, not seeing the correct content

47) Do you offer library card access to Oxford Public International Law?

Yes, to access using your library card, use the login on the Home Page.

48) Our institution connects to the internet using NAT; can we access Oxford Public International Law?

Our access control software will work fine with sites firewalled using NAT. In order to give you access, we just need to know which IP address ranges that the NAT software is masquerading as. Please contact us if you would like to do this.

49) Users with off-site access to Oxford Public International Law

We do not allow remote access unless it is by a secure route e.g. Shibboleth, Athens, a referred URL access from an accessed-controlled page on the subscriber's website or access via a VPN (Virtual Private Network). Please contact us for more information.

50) What is your policy on cookies?

Cookies are required for subscribers to Oxford Public International Law in order to control access to the service. The default policy will be to use cookies for authentication. However, subscribers who have unlimited access licences for Oxford Public International Law may choose to disable cookies and will still be able to use the service, but note that usage statistics related to user sessions will not be available.

51) Questions about proxy servers

a) Will our proxy server IP address(es) be enough to allow access to Oxford Public International Law?
Yes. However, if you are accessing Oxford Public International Law through a proxy server then you need to give us the IP address of the proxy server in order for you to access the Oxford Public International Law site.
b) I've registered my proxy server IP address(es), but I can't access Oxford Public International Law.
If you are shown as not logged in and have no access to full-text content then the IP address of your proxy server is not being recognised by the Oxford Public International Law site. If this is the case, please contact us, giving us details of the problem.
c) After previously successful IP-authenticated access via a proxy server, why am I now being requested to sign in with a user name and password?
If there is no obvious technical solution to the problem, please contact your Internet service provider (ISP) to check whether they have changed their configuration in a way that might hinder your IP-authenticated access to the Oxford Public International Law site.

52) Questions relating to IP addresses

a) I've tried to set up IP-authenticated access to Oxford Public International Law without success
If, for some reason, you are unable to access Oxford Public International Law by IP address authentication, referring URL access may be possible. Please contact us to enquire about further possibilities for your institution.
b) How do I register a large number of IP addresses or change my institution's existing IP addresses?
Contact the office appropriate to your region with the list of IP addresses.

Tip: remember to use the asterisk (*) wildcard character if you are registering an entire class of IP address, and condense IP ranges in the following way, e.g. nnn.nnn.1-30.*

53) Questions about passwords

a) I've forgotten my site administrator password
Please contact us and specify whether you would like to be reminded of your password, or whether you would like to change it (along with details of what you'd like to change it to) and we will send you the details as soon as possible.
b) Can I distribute my site administrator user name and password to allow access for colleagues?
No, this is a restricted ID which should be kept in a safe place for use only by the librarian or site administrator. As access to Oxford Public International Law for institutions is IP authenticated, your colleagues will be able to access service without a user name and password. If any of your colleagues requires a user name and password for off-site access to Oxford Public International Law, please contact us.

55) Which browsers will Oxford Public International Law display on correctly?

Oxford Public International Law is designed to display and function correctly on the following browsers or later:
• Firefox 8 and 9
• Safari 5
• Google Chrome 17 and 18
• IE8 and IE9
We recommend that you set your screen resolution to 1024x768 pixels for the optimum display and use of Oxford Public International Law.

56) How do I use Subscriber Services?

Subscriber Services are only available to subscribers of Oxford Public International Law who are logged in to the site. Usernames and passwords for Subscriber Services are only available to library administrators once you have logged in to the site, just choose the Subscriber Services link from the top toolbar on any page. Once on the Subscriber Services page, you will be required to enter your administrator username and password in order to access the following services:
• View subscription information and IP addresses
• View your institutional usage reports
If you are a subscriber and cannot log in to the Oxford Public International Law Subscriber Services area, please contact us.

Discoverability

57) Can I receive email alerts regarding news and updates to Oxford Public International Law?

You can subscribe to our RSS feed which delivers the latest news wherever you want it.